Ryanair change of departure time 8.5 hours

londonsteve

Dear Forum users,

I am new to this forum, although I have been a regular visitor to MSE for years, and consider that this website performs a valuable service. I turn to you for help in understanding what are my rights in circumstances imposed on my by Ryanair that have caused me considerable cost.

Months ago I booked a return flight with Ryanair from STN to Weeze in northern Germany to attend a trade show over the weekend. My return flight, FR3259 was due to depart at 21:05 from Weeze, allowing me to spend the day at the trade fair on the Sunday. Less than 14 days before my return flight was due to depart (the e-mail arrived some 15 hours into the 2 week period), I was informed that my flight departure time was being bought forward to 13:35. Interestingly my flight number was not changing, despite a departure time 8.5 hours earlier than planned.

As my attendance at the trade fair on day 2 is important and I was unwilling to unnecessarily spend money on another day of car rental and accomodation, without being able to attend the fair on the Sunday, I booked myself on the last flight of the day out of Dusseldorf with BA into LHR, at a cost of £110. I am also having to pay to amend the car rental booking, so that I am allowed to collect in Weeze but drop off in Dusseldorf. Rather than parking at the airport, because of my 'open-jaw' flight I now need to leave much more time to get to STN by public transport and find some way of getting home from LHR late on Sunday evening.

I am planning to use the outward flight with Ryanair, but the inbound flight is now useless, and always was at the time they have rescheduled for. I have not 'accepted' the change via the notification e-mail, nor requested a refund, nor checked in online.

I am wondering what I should now do as despite the EU261 schedule suggesting I am entitled to compensation of 250 Euros, the return flight number did not change and the flight per se was not cancelled, departure was just bought forward by 8.5 hours, albeit with less than 14 days notice, and I was not offered 'rescheduled' flights within the time window specified by EU261.

Any advice from more experienced forum users would be very appreciated.

All the best,
Steve

Incapuppy

londonsteve wrote: »

Any advice from more experienced forum users would be very appreciated.

Giving the full information on your previous thread under a different user name might have been the best bet?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3853817

I_like_saving_money

Is this a new thing Ryanair have started doing as there seems to be a lot of cancelled / rescheduled flights given the number of people complaining about them?

I've flown with them for many years and this is the first year they have rescheduled my flight which I booked because it would give me enough time to get there without having to leave at some mad time like 3am and not get there late. 50 minutes doesn't sound like much but it's the extra time for delays plus allowing plenty of time for security.

It seems Ryanair operate on the policy that we have to be there extra early but if they decide to make the flight earlier, then we have to comply with it.

Fortunately for me I decided to book a hotel for the night before as it is still cheaper for me than risking missing the flight if I turn up late and then having to pay for a more expensive flight home plus the train fare back home if it is more than a few days until the next flight.

If I could change companies I would, but unfortunatly Ryanair have the monopoly on the places I fly to and from and they know this.

For the OP, the fact they have given you warning and bullied you into getting you to ring them probably means you have no comeback in terms of compensation as you either have to accept the flight (Ryanair being a company there to make money rather than satisfy customers don't care about messing up peoples plans) or pay a fortune to ring up and change it.They have no consideration that people have made plans around the flight times and altering the flights have impact on us all.

londonsteve

Sorry but this is someone completely different. It's a pure coincidence that we are experiencing similar problems.

londonsteve

So it appears that I can't do anything, despite changing the time of my return flight by effectively a full working day? It's staggering behaviour, but even more staggering that I'm powerless to do anything. In my view their actions are a fundamental breach of contract to carry me home on Sunday evening (unless unpredictable events conspire otherwise). If I wanted to travel on Sunday afternoon I would have booked an appropriate flight. This is the absolute last time I have anything to do with Ryanair as I've been messed around by them on previous occasions, although not to the magnitude that I've experienced on this occasion.

tobiascurious

Sorry I don't really have much knowledge about these things but i guess if you hadnt already booked a new flight you could have asked ryanair to book you on a flight from a different airport eg Hahn or Eindhoven

richardw

If it saves ryanair money by just saying 'get lost' and they can get away with it by assuming passengers aren't going to do anything, they're going to say 'get lost' aren't they?

budgetflyer

They seem to be P ing off a lot of people lately.
Times are tough and Ryanair seem to be taking it out on their customers rather than trying to get them on side.
I find it strange that M O'L studied the business model of Southwest Airlines, and then is hell bent on doing the opposite